Too Late
by northern orchid
Summary: GSR. Sara has something to say. Mild spoilers?


**Too Late**

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a/n: Hi, this is a random little fic I thought of at work the other day and decided to post...might add a second chapter...hope you enjoy it, thanks for checking it out!

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"Hey," Grissom said softly, as he closed the front door behind him. Sara was sitting at the breakfast island, eating Kellogg's and reading the latest issue of JFS. She was wearing a tank top and shorts, having not changed for work yet. She looked up at him with a quick smile and went back to flipping through the pages, not really looking at most of them. Grissom set down his kit, quietly slid off his vest, and headed for the kitchen area.

"How was shift?" she asked. Her answer came from somewhere inside the refrigerator.

"Not bad -- the usual," he replied, extracting both his head and a carton of orange juice from the depths of the machine. Kicking it closed with his foot, he reached for a glass.

"Not the same without you."

Silence followed as she crunched on the cereal. He sighed and placed a gentle hand on the back of her neck, massaging it lightly. He took a sip, set his glass down in front of her and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"Are you ok?" he mumbled into her hair. It smelled like the shampoo she loved to use. The one that made her hair so shiny and soft beneath his fingers…

"I'm fine," Sara replied. Grissom knew she wasn't telling the truth. His hand moved to a shoulder, followed by his other hand to the opposite shoulder. He worked the knots in her muscles, pressing firmly enough to ease the tension, but not hard enough to hurt.

"You're not," he stated, "There's something bothering you."

Sara let her head fall back as he hit a good spot just under her collar bone. Grissom could see her eyelashes, long and dark, from his spot just above her. He placed another kiss along her hairline. After a few moments like this, he let his hands slide down her arms, bare and soft, pale and slightly freckled. He pressed his body against her back, letting his body heat filter through her thin tank to her skin. Her hand reached up behind her head to find his curls.

"Honey?" he said quietly.

"Mm?"

"Are you going to tell me, or what?"

Sara sighed. He felt her lungs deflate slightly and he squeezed her arms.

"You've been doing this longer," she said, letting the hand in his hair fall back to the table, "haven't you ever once gotten sick of it?"

"Sick of what?" he asked. He didn't like where this was going.

"You said it yourself…'the usual'," she replied, sighing again, "working with dead people, their families, people who loved them…you know, _death_ in general."

Grissom paused, pursing his lips for a moment and then sat down on the stool next to her, taking one of her hands in his. It took him a moment before he replied, watching their fingers intertwine, a silver band gleaming on one of hers. He took a breath, waiting a beat before speaking like he always did before he had something important to say.

"It's a hard job to do, Sara. We all need to sit out for a little bit once in a while. I'd never say I was sick of it. What we do…it helps people. It's a job that needs to be done, I suppose. I love what I do. I always have. Ever since I was little, I wanted to do this. It's just…right." He said, finally looking into her eyes when he said the last part.

She looked away, staring into her cereal as if looking for an answer within the cornflakes.

"I think I'm sick of it, Griss. Maybe it just wasn't 'right' for me." She said.

"You can't be serious, Sara. Remember Berkeley? How many questioned you asked? What about when you first came to Vegas, how eager you were to learn? How happy cracking a case made you? You delve right into things; you do your best at everything you do. You _are _one of the best, you help people every day. How can you be sick of that?" Grissom said, now concerned. It wasn't like her to say things like this. The Sara he knew loved her job. But he suspected that this had something to do with Natalie.

"Don't let her change you, Sara. It's over. She's gone."

Sara looked up at him, a flare in her eyes.

"This isn't about Natalie. This is about being a CSI. This is about having death shoved in my face every day of my life and not being able to do anything about it. I can't take all the dead kids, the tons of people that pass by us who won't get another chance…And then there's you, sitting in your office, taking it like it'nothing. Because it's natural, of course. 'Death is part of the natural sequence of life' and all that. Yeah, I get it. But _I_ don't think _I_ can deal with it anymore." She replied quickly, starting to work herself up.

"Hey, no need to get defensive, honey," he said, trying to clam her down. His thumb swept across the back of her hand, "I'm just confused, here. I thought you liked it the way it is here. Me, you, Vegas…the job…You've always loved your job."

Sara was silent for a moment, staring off somewhere into space. Grissom watched her profile, seeing her lips move a fraction of a second before she spoke.

"I don't know anymore. Maybe I never really loved my job at all, Griss. Maybe I've been reading it wrong all this time. You know what I think?" she said quietly, trailing off. She turned to him, then, an indecipherable look in her dark eyes.

"Maybe-- maybe the only thing I ever loved about it was you."

He stared at her for a moment, squinting his eyes slightly. He looked utterly confused.

"Maybe we have to choose. 'Us' or the job. It's too hard with us on different shifts and having to take all of this separately. It's too hard with Ecklie and the team and the case loads…I think I love you more than I love the job. But…could you really say the same, Gil? If you had to choose, me or the job, could you really give it all up?" She said. His eyes searched hers for an answer. He didn't speak for what seemed like a long time.

"That's what I thought." She finally whispered. Another few moments of silence passed.

"I think I have to leave for a bit. Clear my mind." She said. She could almost hear Grissom's heart being torn in two.

"But what does this mean?" he said quietly, unconsciously playing with the silver band on his fiancée's finger.

"It means that we're probably not ready for this yet." She retracted her hand from his grasp and took off the ring. She placed it carefully in his warm palm.

"I love you, but I don't think I can marry you now. I just need…I just need a little time. Figure out what I'm going to do…" Tears were stinging the corners of her eyes but she refused to let them fall. She stood up.

"Don't do this, Sara." He begged her. She could hear the strain of desperation in his voice.

"I'm not leaving you, Grissom. I just need time to figure out where I'm going; where we're going…please, just…let me go. I'll come back. I promise. Just give me some time."

He grasped the ring in his whole hand, feeling the metal, cool in his palm.

"I love you." He said quietly. She stood up, pushing the stool away from the island. She gave him one last look before she headed for the door of their home. He watched her go, the deep blue of his eyes as raw with emotion as they had ever been. As the door closed behind her, he opened his fist to see the ring sitting there, the metal now hot with his body heat. It suddenly occurred to him how sad it was that the first time he ever told her he loved her was not only after they'd gotten engaged, bit also after she had said she was leaving. And it had been the first time he'd ever said those words to anyone.

There was one other thing it had been…

Too late.

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a/n: So...? Comments are always welcome. Contemplating on a second chapter, maybe more. I have ideas!


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